AuthorTopic: When do cards do things (Read 12811 times)

So okay, Dominion has about 206 differently-named cards that do things when you play them, and 17 cards that affect your score at the end of the game. But of course there are lots of cards that have effects at other times, that can be triggered by a variety of different causes, sometimes when the cards themselves whose effects are being triggered are otherwise just sitting there minding their own business. For instance, whenever any player plays an attack card, in order to resolve all relevant effects, the gamestate (i.e., the players, or Isotropic or Goko or any other implementation) has to check whether they have Urchin in play and whether anyone else has Moat, Horse Traders, Secret Chamber, or Beggar in hand or Lighthouse in play. When anyone reshuffles, the gamestate has to check whether they have Stash in their deck. And so on.

I thought it might be interesting to make a list of all the different times, other than on-play, at which a card can have an effect. I don't promise I didn't miss any triggers, or just plain miscount (and some of the triggers are rephrased a bit with respect to how they actually appear on the cards). But this list gives a general idea of just how often the game, in principle, requires you to stop and check whether something is going to happen.

How many cards act...?

Before the start of the game: 5When you shuffle: 1At the start of your turn: 8When you would play this: 1When you play an attack card: 6When you discard this other than during a clean-up phase: 1When you trash......this: 9...another card: 2When you buy......this: 7...another card: 7When you would gain......this: 1...another card: 2When you gain......this: 7...another card: 4At the start of your clean-up phase: 2When you discard from play......this: 4...another card: 1When you would draw during your cleanup phase: 1At the end of your turn: 1After the end of your turn: 2

While this is in the supply: 1While this is in play: 12While something else is in play: 1Once this has been played, until the end of the game: 1During your buy phase: 1

At the start of your turn should be 8 instead of 7; the 7 Duration card that aren't Outpost and Horse Traders when its Reaction is set off.

Yep, forgot Horse Traders. Thanks!

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There's also when another player buys a card from Embargo. Don't know how you'd count that exactly, because it's not exactly when you buy this.

That's counted under "When you buy... another card": when you buy a card, you check whether it's been embargoed and act accordingly.

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ps what's "Once this has been played, until the end of the game"?edit: Island?

That's also Embargo (and one of the cases where I've rephrased the trigger a bit). The real effect of Embargo, after all, is "choose a pile in the Supply. // From now till the end of the game, when a player buys a card from that pile, he gains a Curse"; the tokens are just for keeping track.

While this is in the supply: 1 (Duchess)While this is in play: 12 (Band of Misfits, Goons, Haggler, Highway, Hoard, Lighthouse, Merchant Guild, Princess, Quarry, Royal Seal, Talisman, Urchin)While something else is in play: 1 (Grand Market)Once this has been played, until the end of the game: 1 (Embargo)During your buy phase: 1 (Peddler)

Nomad Camp. It says "When you gain this, put it on top of your deck," but the actual effect is really something more like "When you would gain this, gain it and put it on top of your deck."

So what are the two "when you would gain another card" cards? I can think of at least three that fit your criteria: Trader, Mine, and Armory. Actually Graverobber, Tournament, and Develop too.

But to be honest, I don't really agree that these (except for Trader) qualify as "would gain." It looks to me like (correct me if I'm wrong of course) you see "gaining a card" as meaning "take the card from its appropriate pile and put it in your Discard pile. I think it's more like going to the Discard is the default destination for gaining, not that going to the Discard is an inherent part of gaining.

Quote from: Dark Ages Rulebook

When a card is gained to a location other than a discard pile, it does not "visit" the discard pile - it goes directly to where it was gained. For example Armory gains cards directly to the top of a deck.

edit: OK just saw your update where you actually put in which cards you were counting, and I see "would gain another card" are correctly Possession (which of course I forgot about ) and Trader. I'm still not sure I agree that Nomad Camp belongs with "would gain" while the others don't...

And Trade Route sort of acts before the start of the game--it puts a coin token on each Victory pile.

Not sure if this is an actual rule or just reminder text, but Island does something "at the end of the game," it returns all cards to your deck.

Horse Traders and any cards set aside with Haven are also returned to your deck if still set aside when the game ends, so I think we have to regard "return set-aside cards to deck at end of game" to be a general rule, and not something Island and Native Village specifically do. So yeah, I was regarding that as reminder text.

edit: OK just saw your update where you actually put in which cards you were counting, and I see "would gain another card" are correctly Possession (which of course I forgot about ) and Trader. I'm still not sure I agree that Nomad Camp belongs with "would gain" while the others don't...

So, think about it in terms of pseudocode. So for instance Jack contains

gain(card="Silver",target="deck")The only way to gain a card to someplace other than your discard pile is through the target argument of the gain instruction. But what happens when you try to gain a Nomad Camp normally? I.e., you run

gain(card="Nomad Camp")with no target argument, which for any other card would put it in your discard, and somehow it goes straight to your deck anyway. In other words, the instruction above is prevented from being carried out, and replaced with

gain(card="Nomad Camp",target="deck")The only way for that to work systematically is if Nomad Camp carries a would-gain stipulation that replaces any gain of it with a gain-to-deck.

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And Trade Route sort of acts before the start of the game--it puts a coin token on each Victory pile.

Yeah, sort of—I'm considering that as similar to Embargo; the tokens are only for keeping track, and the real effect of the card is just "+$1 per Victory pile in the supply from which at least one card has been gained".

It seems like Tournament might create another phase (checking for Provinces). Also, cards that interact with the Trash pile might be worth mentioning - Grave Robber was what I had in mind. Not really too sure, but this is a cool thought exercise.

(Nomad Camp is one card whose effect doesn't actually take place at the time the card says it does. Another is Band of Misfits: if you read it the way cards are normally read, it would have you play it and then choose another card to play it as and play it again, which—as hashed out at length in another thread—is not what happens. A third is Noble Brigand, which has a 'when you play this' clause. If you interpreted that the same way you interpret other when-play instructions, Noble Brigand would seem to trigger at the same time as Urchin, and <a href="http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4535.msg104666#msg104666">therefore</a> before other players' Secret Chambers and so on, which is obviously wrong. Thus "when you play this" on an Attack card is not actually interpreted as meaning the same timing as "when you play an Attack card" on another card.)

Yeah I was about to mention Rats. It's not really event-based at all as far as I'm concerned so shouldn't be in the list. It's just there happens to be more Rats cards than normal. I don't see it as "on setup, take 20 rats cards", it's just plain "take the rats cards" like everything else. The rulebook just clarifies that, yes, there are 20 rats cards. If you are going to include rats then you should consider the VPs too, which really actually do have on-setup rules (8/12 in the stack).

Yeah I was about to mention Rats. It's not really event-based at all as far as I'm concerned so shouldn't be in the list. It's just there happens to be more Rats cards than normal. I don't see it as "on setup, take 20 rats cards", it's just plain "take the rats cards" like everything else. The rulebook just clarifies that, yes, there are 20 rats cards. If you are going to include rats then you should consider the VPs too, which really actually do have on-setup rules (8/12 in the stack).

The basic Dominion rules say "select 10 Kingdom cards and place 10 of each in face-up piles on the table" (and then explain that Victory cards use a different number). Rats is an exception to the second half of this rule, and that's just a special property of the Rats card (whereas Victory cards are conforming to a general rule that is stated in the basic rulebook). So I feel like the fact that Rats makes you put 20 copies in the kingdom in order to set up a game using Rats is not too different from the fact that Young Witch makes you put 11 piles in the kingdom.

So Looters don't count because they're in the general rules for an expansion, but Durations cards do count because ... ? Seems to me that's the normal action of that card type, not a property of specific cards. Had they not been labelled duration, then well that would be different. But they were. Edit: then again, the duration cards do actually specify on themselves "do this stuff next turn", the rule about Duration cards is only that they stay in play until they've got no useful effects left. Hmm.

Regarding Rats: I didn't realise the wording was that specific, that's interesting. If you're going to include them then you should probably include Knights cards too as you have to shuffle them before you play.

If you're including Black Market, then surely Spoils cards, Hermit, Tournament and Urchin count in 'Before the start of the game' too? They all make you add a non-supply pile of some description like Black Market.